No idea, I never used screen sharing on Discord unless it was a very rare occasion to share my view when playing a specific game. So, I'm not the right person to ask...sorry
Matrix the protocol, yeah, is fine. The clients? Only Element Classic seems to work decently on Android, the newer one sucks. The other half dozen clients are atrocious. On desktop Element is fine, but I was experiencing extreme latency, however that was during the initial "rush" to find a Discord alternative a week or so ago.
But, my biggest gripe is trying to explain what Matrix is to other people. Then have to explain what federation is, then the fediverse. Then I get dumb questions of "Why do I need to create a Matrix account to use Element? Can't I just use a Element account?" which either means they didn't understand my previous explanation or they weren't paying attention.
With Fluxer or Root or whatever, I can say "Go make an account on Fluxer.app and then go use the web version until the app is released" and everyone understands that just fine.
This is my take. Fluxer and Root are the top two for my group, but they need more time in the oven(hell, everything does).
So far I've uninstalled discord on my devices and I'm using it via the web browser only in a container tab, until my group switches over to something else.
But I was born in the mid90s. My dad is a tech geek, so we had a personal computer with Windows 95 and I was playing Adiboo on it at 2-3 years old. Also had a Gameboy with Pokemon. Played CS/HL/DOD in the early 2000s. All before we were going to the computer lab at my school.
So I've been entrenched in computers and tech my whole life. So I don't think screen time itself is bad, but we also did not have tech in the classroom (except for the old school throw projectors).
So it probably doesn't help that the classroom nowadays is all tech while also the kid's home is all tech. It's a balancing act.
I tried logging in to use the Marketplace to sell some shit. For whatever reason I couldn't access it. My account is verified, location is set, and some marketplace settings pages said my account is in good standing. Sent a request to support weeks ago and heard nothing.
So I just throw shit away now. Like I WANT to use your platform, but you're not letting me. Bye.
Here's some ideas, in no particular order or combination:
Police stings, "how to catch a predator" style offense
Actually investigate and convict pedophiles(US issue)
Ban the use of real names and PII information. Sign up for FaceSpace? Cool here's a randomly generated username. If you try to dox yourself or others you're banned
Ban social media? Like websites tailored to have you post about yourself, selfies, etc. Lemmy definitely leans towards being social media, but I don't see it as social media.
Force companies to actually develop, use, and improve parental controls
On the last point, let's use Steam as an example. I as a parent should be able to make a "child" account, with its own username, password, and maybe separate email. And then on that child account I should be able to blacklist all features by default and only whitelist what I want. Like only allow the child account to have access to the "Library" view. So when the account is signed into directly it can only see "Library" unless I enter a PIN or password to authenticate being an adult. I can buy games for that child account and/or add the child account to my family share and whitelist games 1-by-1 for my child to have access to.
YouTube is also a good example. I should be able to create a child YouTube account and only allow ABC YouTube channel for that account to have access to. Or tie it to a child Google account and I can restrict everything on an android tablet down to each individual app.
As a tech geek and now parent of a child, the parental controls are lacking HARD for pretty much every service and platform out there. My children are still too young to understand this stuff, but I already know the best thing I can do for my children are:
Teach them Internet safety as early as possible(no real names, no posting addresses, people WILL target you and want to rape/traffick/exploit you)
Explain the psychology around social media, peer pressure, advertisements, etc
No personal device(smart phone, computer) for them until middle school(10-12 years old) at the earliest
Take an active effort in using the Internet with them in appropriate ways as young as possible
Notice I didn't say "no Internet" until X age. I think restricting the Internet from your child entirely until some arbitrary age will be more negative than positive. It's like not teaching your child how to swim because you're afraid they'll drown, but then they're 18 and you tell them to jump into the ocean because YOU'RE ready while they're not.
Oh for sure, I try to keep cash on me for the ones I know truly are homeless. Sometimes I need to do late night grocery runs and the dude hanging out in front of a grocery store at 10pm isn't a scammer. If I don't have cash I usually offer to buy something, usually grocery stores have those pre-made sandwiches.
As a Californian, the state is absolutely huge and I have never been affected by any of the wildfires and frankly I doubt more than 1% of the population has even been affected directly by the fires. It's a completely overblown issue. Does it suck? Yes. Does the media make it seem the entire state is on fire 24/7? Yeah. Don't believe the media.
The real issues Californians face are:
Housing/Zoning/NIMBYs
Public transportation
ISP services(or lack thereof)
Huge population(traffic, cars, etc), of course some areas are worse than others
We do have pretty cheap groceries as long as you don't shop at Target or Pavilions. Costco, WinCo, Aldi's, etc. all have great pricing compared to other posts I see from around the country. Same goes for gas. Costco is around $3.50-$4.00 a gallon(for 87) for the past couple years. But the Chevron or Shell down the street is $4.50-$5 a gallon.
Taxes are also overblown. Everyone looks at our marginal rates and go "so high!" but never calculate what their effective rate is, which is usually much lower.
And then people love to bring up "the homeless" like there's a camp on every street corner. Like yeah, maybe in LA. But for my city I have only seen the occasional pan handler on the freeway off ramps, which I doubt are even homeless since I've seen at least one leave their corner and go to their SUV in the nearby parking lot and drive away at the end of the day, like it's a job for them.
We have our issues, the state is far from perfect, but I'd rather be here in Cali than any other state at this point.
Microsoft tried that with TPM. Which you can bypass for the most part with Rufus and a clean install. Still some kernel anticheat games you can't do so so easily.
I've already switched over to Linux, just got one more system to migrate. So far 100% worth it to not deal with Microslop.
True, we all also interacted in the real world for years before the internet.
So the Internet is also non-essential!
But, it makes it convenient. Discord is also super convenient.
It's not like we didn't see the writing on the wall 10 years ago, but all of us accepted convenience over everything else. Now we are reaping the "benefits".
For me I have a private self hosted wiki that I use to document everything from gaming to my servers to just general life stuff. I'd love to start up a forum for gaming/tech, but I don't have the resources nor funding to do that, plus there's a decent amount of others already out there...
Sucks that there isn't a one-size-fits-all alternative, yet.
Stoat doesn't have enough features.
Matrix is confusing for the masses, plus there is so much conflicting information online of what home server do you join? You shouldn't join matrix.org's because of admin abuse? Element clients on mobile are meh.
TeamSpeak is a voice first platform.
For my situation it looks like I should move my wife and I to Signal and then my friend group to Stoat, but the recent server issues(prob due to influx of new users) has caused a bit of my friends to have a sour taste out of the gate...
Nothing is ready to replace Discord IMO. And that sucks. We need dedicated forums again, more wiki servers, and better chat applications.
Either parent your kid, or don’t, but it is not my job to make sure your kid is coddled on the internet.
As a recently new parent myself, your post is great. And as a IT nerd, your post is also infuriating.
It is so beyond easy nowadays to monitor and restrict your child's access to online content. Seeing the post you're replying to just reminds me of everyone I've ever talked to that had X issue and their only response is "throw hands up in the air after trying nothing".
My kids are still too young to be reasoned with, but my wife and I agreed that:
No dedicated personal phone until middle school, and it ain't gonna be some top of the line iphone
No "tablet kid" bullshit
No unfettered YouTube access
So far our oldest loves finding our phones and can open the camera app from the lockscreen and she runs around taking photos. So we've been letting that slide...but we don't unlock the phone, so it's a compromise we've made as she LOVES taking photos and seeing photos, which I want to encourage. As for content watching we have a TV with Plex and if there's something we approve of on YouTube and we want our kids to watch it(Ms. Rachel), then I download the YouTube video and put it on my Plex server. No ads, no algorithm auto played videos, just pure approved content. And we have classic cartoons(Rolie Polie Olie) and disney/pixar/ghibli movies, etc.
Of course if your kid is at school with no phone but its recess and their friend has a phone with zero limits...yeah I can't control that. But I can at least parent my kid to know that I don't like that and I don't want them to participate it.
Also when they're a bit older(5 or 6 years old) I plan on teaching them internet safety. Don't post PII, don't visit certain websites, always use an adblocker/ublock, only talk to people online that you know in real life, etc. I do plan on playing video games with them(if they have an interest) and I know that will eventually lead to online lobbies, but I am hoping to teach them in private Minecraft servers certain etiquette first and go from there.
I'm both excited and terrified, but this is my job as a parent!
No idea, I never used screen sharing on Discord unless it was a very rare occasion to share my view when playing a specific game. So, I'm not the right person to ask...sorry